knitting knot (spelling joke) nitting not; I didn't really "knit" anything, but did "copy" a crocheted hanging basket (not knowing HOW to crochet, I just took the yarn and "put it" like the other had it *shrug*....no one told me I COULDN'T do it this way ;-)

sounds to me like you could and did. I just wondered I have knitted some off the wall things. I made a spinning wheel so I didn't have buy the materials, then made knitted objects that served a purpose. I made head coverings that block out wind for the beach. Because beanies are worthless to those with sensitive ears. I made a bowling ball scrubber, de-oiler for my husband to take to tournaments. etc.

Well, I didn't do it in the conventional way, using the proper methods....I laid out the yarn and just "put it in the positions" that they were on the one I was copying.....shifting this here, and that there, until they looked the same :-)

Something told me it was lead foil because lead melts at a low temp, tin melts at a high temp and aluminum can't be soldered. I was trying it it with different solders and metals but I don't have any lead around because it is a contaminant to noble metals. 1 pt per 10,000 of lead can contaminate beyond repair and I don't like playing with aqua regia to get it back out.

Chris, the article I was looking for and have not found yet, from memory says,

twist wire ends together, with strip of solder inside

Wrap in tin foil (aluminum) to hold in heat

heat with match (matches?)

If you still have trouble, my suggestion is possibly add a little electrical soldering flux to the joint in step one.try also just that copper wire that comes with a tinned coating, I have seen this with multi circuit cable intended for security alarms, the exact same cable, but without the tinning is sold here as Telepermit phone wiring.

You could maybe pre-tin in your workshop then on site do the joint with the match idea above.

Aspie idea, if the sun is out, focus the sun onto the joint with a magnifying glass, ======solar soldering!

I gave up, I use a lot of crimp fasteners now, the 6.3 spade and socket joiner seeing I reconfigure my solar cabling often, I am talking about light solar cables, it needs lots of copper to reduce losses, and I can buy 30 meter 240-volt extension cords cheaper than the same with a plug and socket at each end.

I still use solder on critical joints, but the above is both easier and just as useful.

I had two ISPs once, website space and dial up per hour with one, and no web site and all you can eat dial up with the other.

The first said it wanted you to use its dial up to update your web site.

But I used the second ISP to update my website.

After 6 months, I was on the phone with the web master have one of our hour long conversations when I mentioned I used the other ISP to access his ISPs web-space. He said, he would totally utterly p i s s e d off if I had hacked thru his security.

I was already on-line via my second phone line, 30-seconds later he went utterly raving bonkers, screaming, swearing, then began crying.

I told him, it was his fault, if it was not technically possible to do it, he should be telling everybody that, because if I had known it was technically impossible, I wouldn't have upset him by doing it.

For certain concessions (free dial up A/C for the drop-in-center) I read out all by browser settings. But I had nothing special, and he still did not know.